“By reading I cannot reanimate corpses, but I can orient myself toward imagining possibilities, tempering my mind for compassionate agility, caring for individual victims of violence.” On corpses, Isis, and contemporary Iraqi fiction. | The Point

“He was untouchable, or he thought he was. But that era is over, for all those guys.” On the recent allegations against Thomas Sayers Ellis, institutional responsibility, and important, inappropriate literary men. | Jezebel

“In a country where free speech was being actively targeted by a minority of violent fundamentalists, the Dhaka Lit Fest was gleefully wearing a bull’s-eye on its back.” Attending a literary festival in Bangladesh after the violent attacks on publishers and bloggers. | VICE

In Afghanistan, a national book drive has provided 20,000 books and seven libraries to “provinces with a reputation for some of the worst violence of the war.” | The New York Times

“[Baudelaire] could always observe because no one was observing him, his purposelessness safeguarded by the warming city streetlights.” Doreen St. Félix on the black flâneur. | GOOD Magazine